Topic 11 – Multiple Linear Regression

ENVX1002 Introduction to Statistical Methods

Si Yang Han

The University of Sydney

May 2025

Module overview

Week 9. Describing Relationships
- Correlation (calculation, interpretation)
- Regression (model structure, model fitting
- What/when/why/how
Week 10. Simple Linear Regression
- Can we use the model?(assumptions, hypothesis testing)
- How good is the model?(interpretation, model fit)
Week 11. Multiple Linear Regression
- Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) modelling
- Assumptions, interpretation and the principle of parsimony
Week 12. Nonlinear Regression
- Common nonlinear functions
- Transformations

Last week: simple linear regression

Y_i = \beta_0 + \beta_1 x_i + \epsilon_i

Ideal for predicting a continuous response variable from a single predictor variable: “How does y change as x changes?”

Identify/quantify relationships between variables
Predict future values

What if we have more than one predictor?

What is the model and how do we interpret the results?

Multiple linear regression

Nearly identical to simple linear regression, just more predictors!

History

Francis Galton and Karl Pearson

First suggested by Francis Galton in 1886 while studying genetic variations in sweet peas over several generations
Karl Pearson developed the mathematical formula for multiple linear regression model later (early 1900s)

“The somewhat complicated mathematics of multiple correlation, with its repeated appeals to the geometrical notions of hyperspace, remained a closed chamber to him.”

– Pearson (1930), on Galton’s work with MLR

Steps for Regression

Understand the variables
Explore data
Fit model
Check assumptions
Assess fit of model/s (parsimony)
Interpret output

Example: Air Quality in New York (1973)

Code

data(airquality)
dplyr::glimpse(airquality)

Rows: 153
Columns: 6
$ Ozone   <int> 41, 36, 12, 18, NA, 28, 23, 19, 8, NA, 7, 16, 11, 14, 18, 14, …
$ Solar.R <int> 190, 118, 149, 313, NA, NA, 299, 99, 19, 194, NA, 256, 290, 27…
$ Wind    <dbl> 7.4, 8.0, 12.6, 11.5, 14.3, 14.9, 8.6, 13.8, 20.1, 8.6, 6.9, 9…
$ Temp    <int> 67, 72, 74, 62, 56, 66, 65, 59, 61, 69, 74, 69, 66, 68, 58, 64…
$ Month   <int> 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5,…
$ Day     <int> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,…

Ozone (O_3) is a harmful air pollutant at ground level - the main component of smog:

Ozone: ozone concentration (ppb)
Solar.R: solar radiation (lang, Langleys)
Wind: wind speed (mph)
Temp: ambient temperature (degrees F)
Month: month (1-12)
Day: day of the month (1-31)

Scatterplots

Code

pairs(airquality)

Correlations via base R

Code

cor(airquality, use = "complete.obs") |> round(2)

        Ozone Solar.R  Wind  Temp Month   Day
Ozone    1.00    0.35 -0.61  0.70  0.14 -0.01
Solar.R  0.35    1.00 -0.13  0.29 -0.07 -0.06
Wind    -0.61   -0.13  1.00 -0.50 -0.19  0.05
Temp     0.70    0.29 -0.50  1.00  0.40 -0.10
Month    0.14   -0.07 -0.19  0.40  1.00 -0.01
Day     -0.01   -0.06  0.05 -0.10 -0.01  1.00

Correlations via `corrplot`

Code

corrplot::corrplot(cor(airquality, use = "complete.obs"), method = "circle")

Correlations via `psych`

Code

psych::pairs.panels(airquality)

What predictors could be useful to predict Ozone?

Temp (r = 0.70), Wind (r = -0.60) and Solar.R (r = 0.35) are the most correlated with Ozone.

What can we understand about the relationship between Ozone and Temp (r = 0.70)?

Relationship

What can we understand about the relationship between Ozone and Temp (r = 0.70)?

Code

library(ggplot2)
ggplot(data = airquality, aes(x = Temp, y = Ozone)) +
  geom_point() + 
  labs(x = expression("Temperature " (degree~F)), y = "Ozone (ppb)") +
  theme_classic()

The higher the temperature, the higher the ozone concentration. The relationship is almost linear.

Fitting a simple model

Code

fit <- lm(formula = Ozone ~ Temp, data = airquality)

Simple linear regression between Ozone and Temp
This is our baseline or control model

Assumptions via base R

Code

par(mfrow = c(2, 2)) # set up a 2 x 2 grid for plots
plot(fit)

Assumptions via `ggfortify`

Code

library(ggfortify)
ggplot2::autoplot(fit) # requires ggfortify but is a ggplot2 function

Interpretation

Code

summary(fit)


Call:
lm(formula = Ozone ~ Temp, data = airquality)

Residuals:
    Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max 
-40.729 -17.409  -0.587  11.306 118.271 

Coefficients:
             Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept) -146.9955    18.2872  -8.038 9.37e-13 ***
Temp           2.4287     0.2331  10.418  < 2e-16 ***
---
Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1

Residual standard error: 23.71 on 114 degrees of freedom
  (37 observations deleted due to missingness)
Multiple R-squared:  0.4877,    Adjusted R-squared:  0.4832 
F-statistic: 108.5 on 1 and 114 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

Temp is a statistically significant predictor of Ozone (p < .001).
The (simple linear) model explains 49% of variance (R² = 0.49).

Can we improve the model in other ways? Maybe - by transforming or adding more variables.

Principle of parsimony

Also known as Occam’s razor;

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. “Entities should not be multiplied without necessity.”

Oxford definition;

The most acceptable explanation of an occurrence, phenomenon, or event is the simplest, involving the fewest entities, assumptions, or changes.

Simple is best; i.e. if a simple (one variable) model and a complex (many variables) model predict similarly well, the simple model is preferred.

A parsimonius model:

Has only useful predictors
No redundant predictors

The problem with using too many predictors

Generally, the more predictors we add, the better the model fits data
However, adding too many may cause overfitting, i.e. the model becomes too complex
An overfitted model won’t be able to generalise to new data

The multiple linear regression model

An extension of simple linear regression to include more than one predictor variable: “How does y change as x_1, x_2, …, x_k change?”

Y_i = \beta_0 + \beta_1 x_1 + \beta_2 x_2 + ... + \beta_k x_k + \epsilon_i

Therefore, estimating the model involves estimating the values of \beta_0, \beta_1, \beta_2, …, \beta_k.

\beta_0 is the intercept
\beta_1 to \beta_k are the partial regression coefficients
\epsilon is the error (residual) term

Fit MLR model to Air Quality data

The variables Month and Day are not useful predictors, so we will exclude them from the model.

Code

fit_multi <- lm(formula = Ozone ~ Solar.R + Wind + Temp, data = airquality)
# fit_multi <- lm(formula = Ozone ~ .-Month -Day, data = airquality) # all variables excluding Month and Day

Visualisation: not easy

Are the plots useful?

3D plot

Code

library(plotly)
plot_ly(data = airquality, 
  x = ~Temp, y = ~Ozone, z = ~Solar.R,
  type = "scatter3d", mode = "markers", opacity = 0.5)

Visualisation: not easy

Are the plots useful?

4D plot

Code

library(plotly)
plot_ly(data = airquality, 
  x = ~Temp, y = ~Ozone, z = ~Solar.R, color = ~Wind,
  type = "scatter3d", mode = "markers", opacity = 0.5)

Partial regression coefficients

Given the multiple linear model: Y_i = \beta_0 + \beta_1 x_1 + \beta_2 x_2 + ... + \beta_k x_k + \epsilon_i

The partial regression coefficient for a predictor x_i is the amount by which the response variable Y changes when x_k is increased by one unit, while all other predictors are held constant.

\beta_k = \frac{\Delta Y}{\Delta x_k}

Code

equatiomatic::extract_eq(fit_multi)

\operatorname{Ozone} = \alpha + \beta_{1}(\operatorname{Solar.R}) + \beta_{2}(\operatorname{Wind}) + \beta_{3}(\operatorname{Temp}) + \epsilon

With Wind and Solar.R held constant, how does Temp affect Ozone?

Partial regression coefficients: visualisation

Code

sjPlot::plot_model(fit_multi,
  type = "pred", 
  terms = c("Temp", "Solar.R", "Wind"), 
  ci.lvl = NA)

With Wind and Solar.R held constant, how does Temp affect Ozone?

Note

Not necessary to do this - lecture content only.

Interpreting the partial regression coefficients

Code

fit_multi


Call:
lm(formula = Ozone ~ Solar.R + Wind + Temp, data = airquality)

Coefficients:
(Intercept)      Solar.R         Wind         Temp  
  -64.34208      0.05982     -3.33359      1.65209

Holding all other variables constant:

For every 1 unit increase in Solar.R, Ozone increases by a mean value of 0.06 ppb.
For every 1 degree increase in Temp, Ozone increases by a mean value of 1.65 ppb.
For every 1 unit increase in Wind, Ozone decreases by a mean value of 3.33 ppb.

Caution

If the model is not “valid” (via assumptions or hypothesis), then the partial regression coefficients are not meaningful.

Assumptions

In SLR, the model is made up of the deterministic component (the line) and the random component (the error term).

Y_i = \color{seagreen}{\beta_0 + \beta_1 x_i} + \color{firebrick}\epsilon_i

This is the same for MLR: Y_i = \color{seagreen}{\beta_0 + \beta_1 x_1 + \beta_2 x_2 + ... + \beta_k x_k} + \color{firebrick}{\epsilon_i}

Since only the error term is random, the assumptions are still about the error term (residuals), \hat\epsilon, which is simple to assess!

Assumptions - CLINE

As with Simple Linear Regression, we need to check the assumptions of the model (LINE):

Linearity: the relationships between the response and the predictors are all linear.
Independence: the observations are independent of each other.
Normality: the residuals are normally distributed.
Equal variance: the variance of the residuals is constant.

With one extra assumption!

Collinearity: there is no perfect linearity between predictors

Two predictors that have a perfect linear relationship (i.e. r = 1 or -1) breaks the assumption of collinearity. High (but not perfect) collinearity (e.g. strong/very strong r) does not break the assumption but can lead to unstable estimates and large standard errors.

The largest correlation between the predictors is between Temp and Wind (r = -0.5). This is not a problem.

Assumptions of MLR

Code

par(mfrow = c(2, 2)) # set up a 2 x 2 grid for plots
plot(fit_multi)

Transformation using `log()`

Some evidence of non-linearity in the diagnostic plots. Transform and re-check assumptions.

Code

fit_multi_log <- lm(formula = log(Ozone) ~ Solar.R + Wind + Temp, data = airquality)
par(mfrow = c(2, 2)) # set up a 2 x 2 grid for plots
plot(fit_multi_log)

Results – MLR vs SLR

Code

summary(fit_multi_log)


Call:
lm(formula = log(Ozone) ~ Solar.R + Wind + Temp, data = airquality)

Residuals:
     Min       1Q   Median       3Q      Max 
-2.06193 -0.29970 -0.00231  0.30756  1.23578 

Coefficients:
              Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept) -0.2621323  0.5535669  -0.474 0.636798    
Solar.R      0.0025152  0.0005567   4.518 1.62e-05 ***
Wind        -0.0615625  0.0157130  -3.918 0.000158 ***
Temp         0.0491711  0.0060875   8.077 1.07e-12 ***
---
Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1

Residual standard error: 0.5086 on 107 degrees of freedom
  (42 observations deleted due to missingness)
Multiple R-squared:  0.6644,    Adjusted R-squared:  0.655 
F-statistic: 70.62 on 3 and 107 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

Code

summary(fit)


Call:
lm(formula = Ozone ~ Temp, data = airquality)

Residuals:
    Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max 
-40.729 -17.409  -0.587  11.306 118.271 

Coefficients:
             Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept) -146.9955    18.2872  -8.038 9.37e-13 ***
Temp           2.4287     0.2331  10.418  < 2e-16 ***
---
Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1

Residual standard error: 23.71 on 114 degrees of freedom
  (37 observations deleted due to missingness)
Multiple R-squared:  0.4877,    Adjusted R-squared:  0.4832 
F-statistic: 108.5 on 1 and 114 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

All three predictors are statistically significant (p < .001).
The MLR model explains 66% of variance (adjusted R² = 0.66), whereas the SLR explains 48% of variance (multiple R² = 0.48).
Thus the MLR is the better model.

Hypothesis Testing

For multiple linear regression, there are two hypothesis tests:

Individual predictors, where the significance of each predictor is tested via t-tests

H_0: \beta_k = 0 H_1: \beta_k \neq 0 - The overall model, which is tested with an F-test (to get F-stat). H_0 is an intercept-only model (i.e. the mean), so if at least one predictor is useful, the model is better than the intercept-only model.

H_0: \beta_1 = \beta_2 = ... = \beta_k = 0 H_1: \text{At least one } \beta_k \neq 0 ## Interpreting coefficients

Call:
lm(formula = log(Ozone) ~ Solar.R + Wind + Temp, data = airquality)

Coefficients:
              Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept) -0.2621323  0.5535669  -0.474 0.636798    
Solar.R      0.0025152  0.0005567   4.518 1.62e-05 ***
Wind        -0.0615625  0.0157130  -3.918 0.000158 ***
Temp         0.0491711  0.0060875   8.077 1.07e-12 ***
---
Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1

All three predictors are statistically significant (p < .001). Holding all other variables constant:

For every 1 unit increase in Solar.R, log(Ozone) increases by a mean value of 0.0025,
For every 1 unit increase in Wind, log(Ozone) decreases by a mean value of 0.062,
For every 1 degree increase in Temp, log(Ozone) increases by a mean value of 0.049.

For every 1 unit increase in Solar.R, Ozone increases by approximately a mean value of 0.25%,
For every 1 unit increase in Wind, Ozone decreases by approximately a mean value of 6.2%,
For every 1 degree increase in Temp, Ozone increases by approximately a mean value of 4.9%.

Model fit

Call:
lm(formula = log(Ozone) ~ Solar.R + Wind + Temp, data = airquality)

Residual standard error: 0.5086 on 107 degrees of freedom
  (42 observations deleted due to missingness)
Multiple R-squared:  0.6644,    Adjusted R-squared:  0.655 
F-statistic: 70.62 on 3 and 107 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

On average, the model predicts log(Ozone) within 0.51 ppb (residual standard error) of the true value. Not bad?

Code

exp(0.51) #backtransform

[1] 1.665291

On average, the model predicts Ozone within 1.67 ppb of the true value.
Degrees of freedom (107) = number of observations (111) - number of predictors in the model (3) - 1

If there are >1 predictors, use the adjusted R-Squared as it penalises the model for having more predictors that are not useful.

The MLR model explains 66% of variance (adjusted R² = 0.66)

The R² value

The R-squared value is the proportion of variance explained by the model.

R^2 = \frac{SS_{reg}}{SS_{tot}} = 1 - \frac{SS_{res}}{SS_{tot}}

The adjusted R-squared value is the proportion of variance explained by the model, adjusted for the number of predictors.

R^2_{adj} = 1 - \frac{SS_{res}}{SS_{tot}} \frac{n-1}{n-p-1}

where n is the number of observations and p is the number of predictors.

F-stat

Call:
lm(formula = log(Ozone) ~ Solar.R + Wind + Temp, data = airquality)

Multiple R-squared:  0.6644,    Adjusted R-squared:  0.655 
F-statistic: 70.62 on 3 and 107 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

The F-statistic tests the null hypothesis that all the regression coefficients are equal to zero, i.e. H_0: \beta_1 = \beta_2 = ... = \beta_k = 0.
As a ratio, it tells us how much better the model is than the null model (i.e. a model with no predictors, the mean).
If the p-value is less than our specified critical value (e.g. 0.05), we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that the current model is better than the null model.

Reporting

A quick (but not complete) summary:

New York air quality data was collected in 1973 by the New York State Department of Conservation and the National Weather Service (meteorological data). There were 111 observations of 6 variables.
There were non-linear relationships between Ozone (the response) and Temp, Wind and Solar.R (the predictors), hence a natural log transformation was applied to Ozone.
Multiple linear regression was conducted on these variables, and model assumptions (CLINE) were met.
Solar radiation, wind speed and temperature are significant predictors of Ozone concentration (p < 0.001) with the model accounting for 66% of the variation in weight. The model explained more variance than a one-predictor model and was found to be significantly better than the null model.

Abalone Quiz

Pop quiz! (No marks, just check your understanding.)

Context

Abalone are marine snails that are a considered a delicacy and very expensive. The older the abalone, the higher the price. Age is determined by counting the number of rings in the shell. To do this, the shell needs to be cut, stained and viewed under a microscope - which is a lot of effort. Researchers measured 9 attributes of the abalone: sex, length, diameter, height, whole, shucked, viscera, shell, and rings.

Note: whole, shucked, viscera and shell are weight measurements.

Code

abalone <- read.csv("data/abalone.csv")

set.seed(1113)          # reproducible randomness
abalone <- abalone %>% 
  select(-sex) %>%      # remove `sex` because it is categorical
  sample_n(100)         # sample 100 observations for cleaner curve
  
str(abalone)

'data.frame':   100 obs. of  8 variables:
 $ length  : num  0.52 0.71 0.33 0.67 0.65 0.35 0.695 0.52 0.6 0.61 ...
 $ diameter: num  0.405 0.57 0.255 0.55 0.51 0.25 0.53 0.41 0.475 0.48 ...
 $ height  : num  0.14 0.195 0.095 0.17 0.19 0.1 0.15 0.14 0.15 0.17 ...
 $ whole   : num  0.692 1.348 0.188 1.247 1.542 ...
 $ shucked : num  0.276 0.8985 0.0735 0.472 0.7155 ...
 $ viscera : num  0.137 0.444 0.045 0.245 0.373 ...
 $ shell   : num  0.215 0.454 0.06 0.4 0.375 ...
 $ rings   : int  11 11 7 21 9 7 14 11 10 10 ...

Scatterplots and correlations

We remove sex from the dataset (not numerical), and subset 100 samples for a cleaner view.

Code

psych::pairs.panels(abalone)     # visualise relationships

Full model

We use natural log transformation on the response variable with log() to account for non-linear relationships.

Code

fit <- lm(log(rings) ~ ., data = abalone)
summary(fit)


Call:
lm(formula = log(rings) ~ ., data = abalone)

Residuals:
     Min       1Q   Median       3Q      Max 
-0.37297 -0.12727 -0.01584  0.08787  0.61636 

Coefficients:
            Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept)  1.34626    0.18219   7.389 6.57e-11 ***
length      -1.25389    1.50969  -0.831  0.40837    
diameter     3.24138    1.91481   1.693  0.09388 .  
height       2.26408    1.34813   1.679  0.09646 .  
whole        0.03089    0.29250   0.106  0.91612    
shucked     -1.30902    0.38861  -3.368  0.00111 ** 
viscera     -0.24785    0.55098  -0.450  0.65389    
shell        1.73328    0.60179   2.880  0.00494 ** 
---
Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1

Residual standard error: 0.1996 on 92 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared:  0.6187,    Adjusted R-squared:  0.5897 
F-statistic: 21.32 on 7 and 92 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

All models

Here, the model is fit with all predictors, then the least significant predictor is removed. This process is repeated until only one predictor remains.

Code

library(broom)

full7 <- lm(log(rings) ~ ., data = abalone)
part6 <- update(full7, . ~ . - whole)
part5 <- update(part6, . ~ . - viscera)
part4 <- update(part5, . ~ . - length)
part3 <- update(part4, . ~ . - height)
part2 <- update(part3, . ~ . - diameter)
part1 <- update(part2, . ~ . - shucked)

formulas <- c(part1$call$formula, 
              part2$call$formula, 
              part3$call$formula, 
              part4$call$formula, 
              part5$call$formula, 
              part6$call$formula, 
              full7$call$formula)

rs <- bind_rows(glance(part1),
                glance(part2),
                glance(part3),
                glance(part4),
                glance(part5),
                glance(part6),
                glance(full7)) %>%
  mutate(Model = formulas, n = 1:7) %>%
  select(Model, n, r.squared, adj.r.squared) %>%
  mutate_if(is.numeric, round, 3)

knitr::kable(rs)

Model	n	r.squared	adj.r.squared
log(rings) ~ shell	1	0.445	0.439
log(rings) ~ shucked + shell	2	0.557	0.548
log(rings) ~ diameter + shucked + shell	3	0.604	0.591
log(rings) ~ diameter + height + shucked + shell	4	0.614	0.598
log(rings) ~ length + diameter + height + shucked + shell	5	0.618	0.597
log(rings) ~ length + diameter + height + shucked + viscera + , shell	6	0.619	0.594
log(rings) ~ .	7	0.619	0.590

Reduced model

Coefficients:
            Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept)   1.4122     0.1594   8.859 4.19e-14 ***
diameter      2.0346     0.6034   3.372  0.00108 ** 
shucked      -1.3339     0.2152  -6.200 1.42e-08 ***
shell         2.0486     0.3672   5.579 2.23e-07 ***
---
Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

How did you do?

Read exam questions carefully and use the process of elimination.

Model and variable selection

Aim is to achieve the best balance between model fit and model complexity.
Follow the rules of parsimony: the simplest model that explains the data is the best, given similar model fit.
- Consider the effect of removing non-significant predictors from the model.
- If model fit (i.e. R²) reduces drastically, keep the predictor, else keep culling.
Covered in more detail in second year (ENVX2001) (stepwise regression)

Summary

Multiple Linear Regression

More than one predictor
Fit y to multiple x – multiple dimensions (hyperplane)
Principle: minimise sum of squared residuals
Assumptions: CLINE (collinearity)
Adjusted R-squared

Simple Linear Regression

One predictor, fit a straight line
Fit straight line between y and x
Principle: minimise sum of squared residuals
Assumptions: LINE
Multiple R-squared

Thanks!

This presentation is based on the SOLES Quarto reveal.js template and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Topic 11 – Multiple Linear Regression

Module overview

Last week: simple linear regression

What if we have more than one predictor?

Multiple linear regression

History

Steps for Regression

Example: Air Quality in New York (1973)

Scatterplots

Correlations via base R

Correlations via corrplot

Correlations via psych

Relationship

Fitting a simple model

Assumptions via base R

Assumptions via ggfortify

Interpretation

Principle of parsimony

A parsimonius model:

The problem with using too many predictors

The multiple linear regression model

Fit MLR model to Air Quality data

Visualisation: not easy

3D plot

Visualisation: not easy

4D plot

Partial regression coefficients

Partial regression coefficients: visualisation

Interpreting the partial regression coefficients

Assumptions

Assumptions - CLINE

Assumptions of MLR

Transformation using log()

Results – MLR vs SLR

Hypothesis Testing

Model fit

The R2 value

F-stat

Reporting

Abalone Quiz

Context

Scatterplots and correlations

Full model

All models

Reduced model

How did you do?

Model and variable selection

Summary

Thanks!

Correlations via `corrplot`

Correlations via `psych`

Assumptions via `ggfortify`

Transformation using `log()`

The R² value